Republicans Want to Criminalize Peaceful Protests

Water protectors join hands in prayer at the end of the day's protest as police line the hill at Standing Rock on November 24, 2016, during an ongoing dispute over the building of the Dakota Access Pipeline. (Photo by Jessica Rinaldi/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

How, you ask? Republican legislators across the country are sneakily introducing bills that would criminalize peaceful protest by strengthening or supplementing existing traffic-related laws, effectively bypassing the First Amendment entirely, according to a new report from The Intercept.

The bills have quietly been introduced in recent weeks in North Dakota, Minnesota, Washington, Michigan, and Iowa, possibly in reaction to "a string of high-profile highway closures and other actions led by Black Lives Matter activists and opponents of the Dakota Access Pipeline," the news site reports, or in anticipation of amped-up protests throughout Donald Trump's presidency. All came ahead of the Women's March.

In North Dakota, "Republicans introduced a bill last week that would allow motorists to run over and kill any protester obstructing a highway as long as a driver does so accidentally," the site reports. (Take a moment to let that one sink in.) In Minnesota, legislators want to pave the way for prosecutors to send highway protestors to jail for a full year.

"Republicans in Washington state have proposed a plan to reclassify as a felony civil disobedience protests that are deemed 'economic terrorism,'" according to the site, while Michigan legislators have temporarily shelved a bill that would make it easier for businesses to sue protestors. In Iowa, "a Republican lawmaker has pledged to introduce legislation to crack down on highway protests," the site says.

The various proposed legislation has alarmed civil rights watchdogs. "This trend of antiprotest legislation dressed up as ‘obstruction’ bills is deeply troubling," Lee Rowland, a senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union, told The Intercept. "A law that would allow the state to charge a protester $10,000 for stepping in the wrong place, or encourage a driver to get away with manslaughter because the victim was protesting, is about one thing: chilling protest."

If you live in one of these states and don't want the bills to pass, raise your voice to your Congressperson. Here's how.